From Spiritual to Virtual: An Interactive Digital Art Creation of Virtual Reality Borobudur

Abstract

This research is triggered by the lack of studies of spiritual meaning as content for digital games. In addition, the idea of art creation is also initiated by the visual sensation of the Borobudur temple that felt by the researcher in his childhood until now. This visual sensation could be deemed as dynamics sublimation of the Borobudur. According to egotistic reflection, these dynamics sublimation were influenced by researcher’s visual perception due to his experiences of having life full of struggle. And then got a vision of life enlightenment as related as philosophy of Buddhism in the visualization of the Borobudur temple. Basically, this spiritual experience will be developed as main concept of the game design with virtual reality technology. The whole idea of this study is investigating the contribution of spiritual element of the Borobudur to the aesthetics of interaction. However, this paper focuses on preliminary of the practice-led research methodology of VR Borobudur art creation. Exploratory hypothesis is the spiritual of life enlightenment could be employed as contents of digital game of VR Borobudur. The end of the project will use the VR Borobudur for play test observation as one of method to investigating the contribution of the aesthetics of interaction in the game with virtual reality technology. In initial summary, the researcher estimates the design method of interactive digital arts creation based on religious substance need more depth understanding in synthesis of spiritual philosophy and cultural studies.